It was a dappled and daubed harbor scene that gave Impressionism its name. When Impression, Sunrise by Claude Monet was exhibited in April 1874, critics seized upon the work's title and its loose stylistic rendering of light and motion upon water to deride this new, impressionistic, tendency in art. As with many seminal art movements, the critics got their comeuppance. Today, Impressionism is close contender for the world's favorite period of painting. With blockbuster exhibitions, record-breaking auction prices, and packed museums, the works once dismissed as unfinished or imprecise are now beloved for their ... |
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Master of the sublime: The essential Impressionist. ... No other artist, apart from J.M.W. Turner, tried as hard as Claude Monet (1840 - 1926) to capture light itself on canvas. Of all the Impressionists, it was the man Cezanne called "only an eye, but my God what an eye!" who stayed true to the principle of absolute fidelity to the visual sensation, painting directly from the object. It could be said that Monet reinvented the possibilities of color. Whether it was through his early interest in Japanese prints, his time as a conscript in the dazzling light of Algeria, or his personal acquaintance with the ... |
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Most commonly associated with the birth of the Impressionist movement in mid-19th-century Paris, Edgar Degas (1834 - 1917) in fact defied easy categorization and instead developed a unique style, strongly influenced by Old Masters, the body in motion, and everyday urban life. The elder scion of a wealthy family, Degas cofounded a series of exhibitions of "Impressionist" art, but soon disassociated himself from the group in pursuit of a more realist approach. His subjects centered on the teeming, noisy streets of Paris, as well as its leisure entertainments, such as horse racing, cabarets, and, most particularly, ... |
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Anguished art: The tortured talents of a post-Impressionist master. Today, the works of Vincent van Gogh (1853 - 1890) are among the most well-known and celebrated in the world. In Sunflowers, The Starry Night, Self-Portrait with Bandaged Ear, and many, many paintings and drawings beyond, we recognize an artist uniquely dexterous in the portrayal of mood and place through paint, pencil, charcoal, or chalk. Yet as he was deploying the lurid colors, emphatic brushwork, and contoured forms that would subsequently make his name and inspire generations of expressionist artists, van Gogh battled not only the disinterest of ... |
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Henri Rousseau (1844 - 1910) was a clerk in the Paris customs service who dreamed of becoming a famous artist. At the age 49, he decided to give it a try. At first, Rousseau’s bright, bold paintings of jungles and exotic flora and fauna were dismissed as childish and simplistic, but his unique and tenacious style soon won acclaim. After 1886, he exhibited regularly at Paris’s prestigious Salon des Indépendants, and in 1908 he received a legendary banquet of honor, hosted by Picasso. Although best known for his tropical scenes, Rousseau, in fact, never left France, relying on books and magazines for inspiration, as ... |
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Sharp angles, strange forms, lurid colors, and distorted perspectives are classic hallmarks of Expressionism, the twentieth century movement that prioritized emotion over objective reality. Though particularly present in Germany and Austria, the movement’s approach flourished internationally and is today hailed as one of the most influential shifts in art history. With leading groups Die Brücke (The Bridge) and Der Blaue Reiter (The Blue Rider), and key players such as Wassily Kandinsky, Egon Schiele,and Emil Nolde, the Expressionists disowned Impressionism, which they regarded as man lowered to the position of a ... |
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At the age of six, Salvador Dali (1904 - 1989) wanted to be a cook. At the age of seven, he wanted to be Napoleon. "Since then", he later said, "my ambition has steadily grown, and my megalomania with it. Now I want only to be Salvador Dali, I have no greater wish". Throughout his life, Dali was out to become Dali: that is, one of the most significant artists and eccentrics of the 20th century. This weighty volume is the most complete study of Dali's painted works ever published. After years of research, Robert Descharnes and Gilles Neret located painted works by the master that had been ... |
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Френската столица се преобразява до неузнаваемост с построяването на големите булеварди и пробуждането на ново художествено течение, което ще промени начина, по който хората гледат на изкуството и света - импресионизма. Главната героиня разказва за необичайната си връзка, преминаваща през вековете и пространствата, с Гюстав Кайбот, приятел и покровител на художници като Моне и Реноар и самият той впечатляващ художник импресионист. Авторката проследява историята на този тъжен милионер и описва живота му от раждането до момента, в който прочутата картина Парижка улица в дъждовен ден стига до Чикагския институт по ... |
